Almost five days after one of its officers was involved in a fatal crash that killed a mother and her teenage son on his birthday, the Missouri City Police Department in Texas still can’t explain why the officer was responding to a call and why a man was discovered in the back seat of his vehicle hours later.
According to authorities, Angela and Mason Stewart, 16, were exiting a parking lot at 8:45 p.m. Thursday when the officer, who police said was responding to a robbery call, collided with their vehicle. The public safety department confirmed that Mason Stewart was driving. He and his mother were pronounced deceased on the scene. Angela was 53 years old, according to authorities, while public records and the Fort Bend County Medical Examiner’s Office say she was 52. Her birthday is July 5. The cop was sent to a hospital and has since been released.
More than two hours after the crash, authorities said, the Texas Department of Public Safety, which is investigating, discovered a guy in the patrol car’s back seat. The man was brought to the hospital.
In an interview Monday, Derrick Spencer, a Missouri City police detective and public information officer, said the man’s condition was unknown and his identity would not be revealed.
“Last I heard Friday morning, he was being taken into surgery,” Spencer told me. “We have not received an update on his condition.”
On Tuesday, a police investigator confirmed that he was still hospitalized.
It is unknown why the individual was present, or why the officer would have responded to a call of a robbery in progress if he had someone in the rear seat. Spencer stated that this is being investigated, as is whether the officer was dispatched to attend to the reported robbery or went there on his own.
Harris and Spencer declined to identify the officer, saying only that he has been in law enforcement for three years, including less than a year with the Missouri City Police Department. Missouri City is a suburb of Houston. They stated it was unclear whether the officer’s lights or sirens were activated before to the crash. Harris stated that hours of body camera and dash cam film must be evaluated to determine this.
Both stated that the department’s policy allows officers to choose when to activate their lights and sirens. An officer, for example, may decide not to turn them on so that a suspect does not have time to leave.
Detective Michael Medina confirmed Tuesday that the officer is on administrative leave as the police department conducts an internal inquiry into its policies and procedures.
Rodney Stewart told reporters at the scene on Friday that after his wife and son failed to return home from the store, he tracked them down using his son’s cellphone. When he arrived at the scene, he said he notified authorities that his car and family had been involved in the accident, and an officer informed him that they had died. Rodney Stewart stated that police had not offered any information concerning the crash other than his identification and information about his kid, whose ID they apparently were unable to collect.
“They just kept me from going to the scene and one of the officers told me that they were gone,” he explained to the media.
According to NBCNEWS, A woman who was also on the scene with him on Friday cried as she told reporters that she didn’t know how she was going to finish a capstone project she had been working on to graduate after such tragic losses.
“My mother will never see me walk across the stage,” she joked. “After working so hard to get my freaking doctorate, she will never see me.”
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Rodney Stewart and other members of his family denied an interview request on Monday evening.
The Texas Department of Public Safety did not respond to emails or phone messages requesting additional information.
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